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Powell unable to name a Labour policy when asked by Ridge: “Now is not the time”. Starmer has dumped leadership campaign promise to retain radical policies

Sunday interview exposes Labour’s lack of policies – and Starmer’s broken leadership campaign promise

Labour’s shadow business minister Lucy Powell was unable to name a single Labour policy on Sunday when asked by Sky’s Sophie Ridge.

Instead, Powell waffled about the public loving Keir Starmer and said that “I don’t think now’s the time” for Labour to put forward policies, remarkably claiming that this is because the UK is in the middle of the coronavirus crisis – a crisis so abysmally handled by Boris Johnson that tens of thousands have died needlessly:

When the programme was replayed later in the day, that segment had been removed, with Ridge jumping from a discussion of face masks to thanking Powell for appearing:

But Powell’s inability to name a policy confirmed what many Labour members have already concluded – that Keir Starmer has dumped his firm campaign promise to retain Labour’s policy set.

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37 comments

  1. This is what happens when you select people because of their internal party politics rather than their ability and she’s not the only one. Barry Gardiner Dawn Butler and other talented MPs have been tossed aside so that hopeless and formerly very embittered MPs like Rachel Reeves and Lucy Powell can sit on our front benches. Keir Starmer needs to wake up and start doing the right thing if he ever wants to be PM

    1. Rachel Reeves was terrible at the weekend refusing to say if the Labour policy of increasing tax only for those earning over a certain amount was still in force. It looks like she is supporting higher taxes across the board which would be a further kick in the face for many of whom have been working throughout the pandemic such as nurses, bin men, care workers, cleaners etc.

    2. Last week Phillopson showed her and her leader’s total incompetence and now Powell.
      No more Blair’s Babes, now we have “Keir’s Clones” and damned pathetic they are too..
      https://pin.it/RMPZbl0

      1. Keir’s Killers – vote killers.

        Left members who stay – only stuff envelopes, canvas and campaign for SCG Members!

      2. qwertboi 14/07/2020 at 6:43 pm

        That depends on whether you want a Labour government.

        Adopting the RW strategy of undermining the election prospects of the Labour Party and sacrificing the welfare of millions of vulnerable people on the alter of political factionalism is in my opinion reprehensible.

    3. Both Starmer & Reeves seem to suffer from a permanent nasal intonation problem. It sucks the air out of any room they speak in. Perhaps they could score a 2 for 1 nose-job deal to spare us further tedium?

      1. I think the only beaut weird enough to volunteer to swap personalities with either of them would be steve h, so what’d be the point?

      2. I’d say not so much the air out of the room as the impact out of the words – not that there’s ever anything impactful in them to be sucked out.
        Between Lawyer Cox’s over-rehearsed sonorous grandiloquence and Lawyer Starmer’s soporific sleepytime honking I can’t decide who to kill first 🙂

    4. correction – post should read -formerly embittered Mps like Rachel Reeves and Jess Phillips

  2. Smartboy, don’t you think it’s actually quite cheering that the right is either utterly devoid of talent or Starmer is so weak he’s scared to promote competition?
    It could be both of course… 🙂 🙂

    1. No this doesn’t cheer me David. It breaks my heart that people like Rachel Reeves Lucy Powell etc are in our Shadow cabinet / front bench. They have absolutely nothing to offer and come the next election we will be stuck between a rock and a hard place – vote for them or don’t vote at all.
      When I think of the way Jeremy Corbyn was vilified and not one of his non Socialist MPs ever uttered a single word in his support I feel completely sickened. I have no time for any of them – quite honestly their self interested behaviour disgusts me.

  3. I think Lucy Powell was right to refuse to be drawn on future policies. Why would Labour want to make themselves a hostage to fortune this far out from an election particularly as no one knows how much the Tories are going to fuck-up the economy through their mismanagement of the pandemic and Brexit.

    We know from past experience that as soon as any new policies are announced there would be incessant pestering for costings and where’s the money coming from plus we also know from experience that the Tories are past masters at stealing ideas or intentionally making the future implementation of Labour’s policies nigh on impossible.

    As I said above why would we want to make ourselves a hostage to fortune for no gain.

    1. ”I think Lucy Powell was right to refuse to be drawn on future policies.”

      Well, put my popcorn in the microwave – Quelle effing surprise!

      We already knew and nobody, but NOBODY, is interested in your ‘micawberist’ bullshit.

      And desist from insulting the intelligence of people far brighter than you, by spewing your risible shit about the reasons for not giving out policy details – it’s because they match the toerag’s policies in all but implementation.

      There isn’t one of them got a clue, nevermind a decent policy between them. They’re as radical as a flat bleedin’ tyre.

    2. She couldn’t answer because Starmer is waiting for the BoD to write the preliminary manifesto.

      Reeves and Powell are two of those who were responsible for the deliberate and planned undermining of Jeremy Corbyn.

      1. ”Reeves and Powell are two of those who were responsible for the deliberate and planned undermining of Jeremy Corbyn.”

        Yeah, and so were the biggest conniving rodents of them all, namely twatson and stammer.

        twatson was the a/s side of the coin while stammer was the 2nd ref side. twatson, as we know – did the frank bough; but as soon as stammer became leader he completely ditched his 2nd ref, knowing full well it had no pull whatsoever and was the reason the party lost the election, and so, turned full tilt to the bullshit a/s smears to ensure the media kept on smearing the socialists within the party and hounding them out.

        And it was facilitated and enabled by those that allowed him to act as he pleased over the 2nd ref. All you who did so created the monster…

      2. Jack – The Labour party has issued a statement confirming they have received the ECHR Report. They now have 28 days to request any corrections they may want.

    3. Perhaps we should not get into the absurd discussion of costings? I would think one thing that this pandemic has shown is that it is absurd. Labour’s last manifesto was £80 billion. Tories have spent £600 billion. Has the sky fallen in? No it hasn’t. Spending is not funded by taxes. Government create money.

  4. Sophie Ridge “No one’s accepting a manifesto this far from an election”, she’s asking us to abandon the whole thing?

    1. She said “No-one’s expecting a manifesto”
      She meant that no-one’s expecting a full manifesto this early but in 100 days Starmer hasn’t even come up with one new policy – except that he’s not Jeremy Corbyn.

      Fucking right he’s no Jeremy Corbyn, but I don’t think she meant it that way.

  5. When the AS Scam is still being used to suspend left members and the report on the report is pushed back you dont need to make up shit

  6. Left PLP should be putting out manifesto policy commitments purely on the grounds that Keir said so in leadership campaign,
    Change the language
    The manifesto reflects what the Labour party stands for and a new Leader does not change that

  7. Change politics
    We always start every day 3-0 down with MSM and toilet papers so the only way to combat that is to campaign every day on core beliefs and key policies, the idea we can sell a manifesto in 6 weeks before a GE is pure fuckwittery
    Secondly we need to demonize them and their policies and the devastating impact they have on our lives and communities, so until we attack MSM and toilet papers and the individuals behind them we are always going to be fighting a losing battle
    Now remind me who owns the media and the Tory party
    Why do we have food banks and period poverty and why are good folk being pushed over the edge

  8. And enough of the my dads bigger than your dad debates on here, get back to the day job of fighting Tories even if your not in the party

  9. Maybe their policy will be to be little more than, “To be an alternative management to the Blue Team”.

    1. Change language
      Talk about Red Tories, Yellow Tories and Tartan Tories
      Quote ‘Maximus Peake
      If your not voting Labour then your a Tory

  10. Free Broadband is a fundamental foundation stone for a successful economy it’s a complete no brainer
    So sell it as part of the TV Licence fee, people will bite your hand off for £27 month per household, this will fund it and secure BBC funding

    1. “Free” at 27 quid a month? What will the ‘free at the point of use’ NHS cost us a month ffs?

      Your first sentence was perfect * – you should have left it at that.

      *Except for punctuation, obviously. Here are some spares; .;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.; let me know when you run out again 🙂

  11. Nationalisation
    Go with water and railways, water as a public health issue and to stop the gouging by foreign owners, calculate how much debt has been put on public and how much has been extracted by greedy investors
    Railways because they are coming back to us when franchises expire, no more new franchises and cost less to run when you strip out profit motive, public transport is another foundation stone of green economy
    Campaign every day until next GE, you can fool the electorate for 4 weeks but not for 4 years, if you cant sell it over 4 years then its a shit policy, sooner you find out the better

  12. What happened to the Knight of the realms promises to keep much of the Democratic socialist Labour party manifesto during the leadership campaign?

    How many misguided, misinformed or perhaps malevolent people believed him and supported or continue to support this lackey of the establishment and controlled also by US right wing oligarchs.

    It should come as no surprise the Knight of the realms underlings cannot offer any policies from the manifest he promised to maintain. Nor that one of his minions on this site continues to offer slavish support for the servant of the establishment!!

    1. So where are our Cockwombles on the left going onto the media on a daily basis to remind the world of his promise and to promote our extremely popular manifesto
      Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery and John McDonnell get off your arses

      1. The Media do not do Looney Lefties I thought that it’s quite obvious by now as the media is owned by 147 Tory Billionaires that reside in Britain also the B ent B iased C orrupt Tory TV doesn’t do Lefties

  13. Surely, if Starmer and co can’t be bothered to write a single policy then those already previously agreed remain Labour policy. All the policies the Corbyn shadow cabinet drew up !!

  14. Where have my posts gone?

    Last time…

    @doug. A 27p/m fee for b’band incorporating a Tv licence is 35% more than I’m paying now – And I don’t pay the Tv licence.

    Apropos of tv licence, I see the consultation results are due on the decriminalisation of Tv licence ‘evaders’ according to the tv licensing blogspot (Won’t insert link s It’s that that’s making the post disappear)

    ”The consultation ran for eight weeks from the start of February. According to reports it received in excess of 100,000 responses – including our own, which we shall publish in a future article – demonstrating the strength of public opinion about the TV licence fee. The consultation closed on 1st April 2020 and its findings will be reported later this year.”

    Something stammer’d never even consider – decriminalising plebs. Tory MPs he didn’t even prosecute as DPP.

    Be interesting to get his take on this. No doubt he’ll be concerned about the eventual job losses…of his highly overpaid boardroom chums – like yentob for example. Forget the charladies and gofers on NMW…

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